


Results May Vary

by ncfan



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Canon Speculation, Conversations, Gen, M/M, Post-First Human Reanimation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 08:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14807465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: Actually falling asleep will probably qualify as a miracle.





	Results May Vary

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I wrote the book-canon Reanimator fic I’d been wanting to write. Gave the narrator a different name from Dan, because he is characterized differently. And wrote a closer look at what happened after their first try at human reanimation, because both of their immediate reactions to the immediate results of the reanimation is stark terror, and that’s... really interesting, all things considered.

“It isn’t as if the non-human subjects didn’t make a commotion upon first being reanimated; I should have stayed!”

“Make a commotion and tried to scratch your eyes out,” Stephen pointed out doubtfully. “A grown man could have done worse.”

Herbert slashed the air with his hand (a hand that was still shaking after hours) and shook his head violently. “Unreasoning animals. If they responded in such a way, it can only be because they awoke with a stranger standing over them.”

“A stranger who put them down before reanimating them, in many cases.”

To that, Herbert pressed his palms down flat on the edge of his bed and craned his neck so he could look Stephen in the eye. “So you think that animals are capable of carrying grudges into death and back?” He was trying for that tone with which Stephen was by now well-acquainted—something indistinct that straddled the boundary between good-natured teasing and significantly less good-natured mockery. But it was undercut by the way his voice jittered and his mouth pulled in something that was not a smile so much as it was a spasmodic twitching. “A little superstitious, are we?”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Says a true-born son of the Miskatonic valley.”

“I only believe in things it’s sensible to believe in!” Herbert protested. His hands fisted in the old, gray bedsheet spread across his mattress. “Not in things with no basis in hard reality.”

Stephen refrained from pointing out that before the first occasion Herbert had obtained verifiable results from one of the animal subjects, the only person widely considered to have raised the dead was Jesus Christ, whose miracles Herbert had cast doubt on, and whose very existence he seemed less than sure of—though he for once had shown the good sense to keep quiet about his opinions in mixed company. In the interest of not alerting everyone on the floor to their conversation, Stephen also refrained from pointing out how, when they’d first returned here and barely been able to string sentences together for their gibbering, Herbert had betrayed his upbringing just as much as Stephen had. Perhaps more so, for on top of wide-eyed whispers about demons and devils, there had been choked references to other, nameless things, words that Herbert had swallowed on as soon as they left his mouth, but could still be clearly seen flitting behind his wide, wild eyes.

Any belief in fairy tales that Stephen had ever harbored had vanished from this earth around the time he had stopped believing in the existence of Santa Claus. Most of them had never interested him, anyways, not the way they seemed—apparently, if the rapid-fire, rapidly-suppressed chatter Stephen had heard hours ago was any indication—to have interested Herbert as a child. Perhaps still did.

He wouldn’t make any progress by needling him. Others had tried, and that was how the two of them had wound up here, too terrified to sleep, too terrified to turn down the gas, too terrified to remove the chair Herbert had hastily shoved under the doorknob when they had finally reached his room. “If that was the workman screaming,” Stephen tried instead—

“I don’t see who else it could have been.”

“ _Herbert_.”

A lopsided, slightly rueful smile was his response. Definitely a smile this time; not enough twitching, and something sparked in his eyes, though Stephen couldn’t tell precisely what.

Stephen bit back a sigh, shaking his head gently. “If that was the workman screaming, it didn’t sound like an _intelligent_ scream, did it?”

“I…” Herbert paused, deep lines furrowing his forehead. When finally he spoke, it was in stilted tones to say, “I wasn’t really paying mind to the _quality_ of the scream.”

After all, he had bolted out the window on Stephen’s heels, ran until he was wheezing, screamed until his lungs were screaming back. He… had been doing that, hadn’t he? Something prodded at Stephen’s mind, but he pushed it aside. “It didn’t sound intelligent,” he said firmly. “Not to me.”

Blue eyes darted back and forth before Herbert screwed them shut, groaned, and slapped the thin mattress of his bed. “No. Damn it. He’d been dead for hours; the brain must have degraded too far for intelligence to remain. That or the formula still needs refinement.” He hissed through clenched teeth; eyes fluttered open and fixed on Stephen’s face, sharp as any blade. “I will need a better look at him to be sure.”

“And the sooner we get the equipment out of the farmhouse, the better.”

Had the workman kept screaming? Stephen hadn’t exactly been listening for screams during his mad dash back into Arkham; the only reason he’d registered Herbert’s was because Herbert had been right behind him the whole way back into town. The Chapman place was remote; there wasn’t anyone living in earshot. But if someone came through the woods and heard the workman screaming…

Stephen chanced a glance at the window.  The curtains were half-shut and through the gap spilled a pale, watery light into a ribbon on the floor. There weren’t any policemen at the door, not yet. And maybe there wouldn’t be any at all. Herbert had made a point of not writing any identifying information on his notes, and had instructed Stephen to do likewise (Though if presented to the likes of Dean Halsey, the author’s identity would have been discovered soon enough). Stephen hadn’t left any of his personal belongings in the farmhouse. Still, Stephen had no desire to look out into the hall to check.

“So long as he doesn’t get into the notes,” Herbert said, but without conviction.

Silence like a leaden shroud descended over them both. They sat perched on the edge of Herbert’s bed, not looking at the door. Not looking at the window. Not looking at each other. Stephen had been awake all night and longer still, but though muscles ached with tiredness, his mind was racing. Beside him, he could feel the nervous energy radiating off of Herbert, but he didn’t get up and pace as he would have done any other day. Stephen wondered if Herbert felt as he felt—an overwhelming need to keep still and keep quiet, as if there were people outside the door, listening for even the faintest hint of people inside.

As the sky grew lighter and the ribbon on the floor grew brighter, there were definite signs of occupancy in the rest of the building. Footfalls sounded in the hall, hard against the hardwood floor; heavier, more muffled footfalls sounded from the carpeted stairs. Murmured voices in the hallways came in distorted snatches of conversation that Stephen had neither the energy nor the desire to attempt to parse into intelligibility; they soon passed to silence and more footfalls. The scent of cooking meat wafted up from downstairs, but even though Stephen’s last meal had been noontime yesterday, his stomach turned. A quick, furtive glance at Herbert showed his friend’s already pale face bleaching sickly white.

A door slammed. Stephen flinched. Herbert jumped and stared around wildly before fisting his hands in the bedsheet again and staring down at the floor.

“We should try to sleep,” Herbert muttered. His eyes shot up to Stephen’s face. “Unless you want to go to class?”

“No.” Stephen didn’t think he could have gone to class and successfully passed himself off as _normal_ , not after last night.

Herbert nodded stiffly and got up to check the latch on the door, fumbling at it for nearly half a minute before finally seeming satisfied that it was properly secured. He didn’t take the chair away from the door. Stephen hopped up from the bed, hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room, as Herbert took off his shoes, laid his spectacles down on the bedside table. He managed to knock over his copy of _The King in Yellow_ in the process, the one fiction book Stephen knew him to own; the well-worn book fell open on 'The Mask' as it had more than once before. But Herbert didn't notice the book's fall. He curled up on the far side of his bed. He didn’t bother undressing any further, not even to remove his jacket. Just lied down, pressed up close to the wall.

Himself, Stephen had no desire to make the walk back to his own room. He eyed the chair lodged under the doorknob, but not seriously. There was just the idea stewing in his mind that he wouldn’t even be able to shut his eyes if he moved it.

That left the floor, then. Stephen stared around the room, hoping for a rug to materialize from the ether, but there was nothing feeling particularly accommodating today. As he wondered whether Herbert would make a donation of his pillow or if he should just use his jacket, Herbert spoke up, voice jarringly loud in the quiet, “Stephen?”

He was sitting up in bed, propped up on his elbows. They stared at one another, Herbert blinking rapidly in what Stephen could only guess was an attempt to focus on his face unaided. Finally, Herbert gave up and said, quietly, “There _is_ room enough on the bed for two people.”

There really _wasn’t_ , and judging by the groan of the old twin bed when Stephen lied down, the bed itself agreed with him. Even with Herbert pressed up as close against the wall as he could be and Stephen lying so that his back lined up perfectly with the edge of the bed, there was barely an inch between them. Herbert was small, and Stephen, though most men looked large when standing (or lying) next to Herbert West, was tall but hardly a giant. Still, the bed was cramped, and Stephen found himself wishing for his own. He made no move to get up.

With the thick, dark curtains drawn half-shut, there was a sort of soft, misty gloom that normally wouldn’t have granted enough darkness for Stephen to sleep, but on this occasion, he was grateful for the light pouring through the gap. No masses of shadow swirled in the far corners or under the furniture. Somewhat reluctantly, he shut his eyes and tried to sleep.

Tried.

As he tried to find sleep, Stephen became increasingly aware of the presence of the bed’s other occupant. The ragged breathing that made the bed shiver and the whole room seem to pulse, it had to be coming from somewhere, and it wasn’t coming from Stephen’s mouth. For the moment, the idea of sleep was abandoned, as Stephen instead opened his eyes and fixed them on that other occupant, considering.

They had raised the dead last night, perhaps. It wasn’t the first time; the signs of vitality obtained from animal subjects had been unmistakable, even if those not present for the experiments cast doubt on the outcome. But it was the first time they’d made an attempt on a human subject, and it had been a success. Perhaps.

No, not ‘perhaps.’ If that hellish scream, terrible as it was, wasn’t a clear signal of vitality, Stephen couldn’t imagine what it was (Didn’t care to think of what it was). They had raised the dead last night. The reagent worked on human subjects. They had raised the dead.

It was all that Stephen had dreamed of since the moment he’d first learned it was possible. Imagine it, just imagine it—no longer did it have to be the end if a doctor arrived a few minutes too late to save a factory worker injured in an accident, to help pump water out of the lungs of a child who’d fallen into the river. Herbert had kept his own counsel as to just what danced through his mind when he thought of what the reagent’s effects on society could be, but Stephen couldn’t imagine that it was anything different from his. He couldn’t imagine even someone as dogged as Herbert West persisting so long in the face of ridicule and censure from every authority aware of his research for anything less.

It was all Stephen had dreamed of since the moment he’d learned it was possible. Success, even if the subject’s mind had not been restored with his vitality, should have prompted something close to euphoria. The reagent worked on human subjects. Even if the formula needed to be refined, the dosage adjusted, and the subject not in so advanced a state of decay, the reagent worked on human subjects. He should have been giddy with joy, he should have been euphoric, he should have been _happy_.

Instead, he was huddled on this bed, fully dressed, unable to sleep. Ears straining for the slightest sound. In the place in his mind where happiness should have been, there was a hollow emptiness whose silence was shattered by a scream. With each echo that returned to the original spot, it became more terrible, until in Stephen’s memory it was a howl that no human vocal cords, living or dead, should have been capable of producing.

And Herbert, who had always responded so excitedly to success with animal subjects (even the ones who scratched his hands to ribbons and tried in earnest to do the same to his face—which is to say, most of them), was curled up tight on his bed, knees folded up nearly to his chest. The trembling that had taken hold of him hours ago had lessened, but not left; his shoulders still discernibly shook, and the mattress reflected it. He was drawing in deep, ragged breaths, almost as if beating back nausea. He’d bolted out the window right after Stephen. Had been reduced to a screaming, then gibbering wreck right alongside him. And now, this. Hardly how Stephen had imagined him in his moment of triumph.

“Herbert?” His voice barely rose over a whisper; he didn’t dare speak at a normal volume.

He got no response for several moments, but that ragged breathing noticeably quieted, and the shaking in Herbert’s shoulders increased proportionately. When Herbert did speak, it was in the tinny, hollow tone of forced normality. “What is it?”

“You do…” Stephen stared down at the back of Herbert’s blond head, wishing somewhat desperately for a more precise gauge of his mood. “…You do want to keep doing this, don’t you?”

“Of _course_ I do.” Stephen wasn’t certain as to whether he should be relieved or alarmed that he could make out a distant irritation in Herbert’s voice, but no real anger. “We’ve come so far already, and I’ve finally proof that reanimation of human subjects is possible. Why would I want to _stop_?”

 _Because all of the animal subjects have been terrified and violent upon waking. Because the workman sounded as if he was in absolute torment_. But as Herbert said, animals were animals, and the workman had been dead long enough for the brain to have degraded beyond the reagent’s ability to restore intelligence. “What if,” Stephen tried instead, “no matter how freshly dead the subject is, the reagent can never restore intelligence? What if all it ever produces are lunatics, people unfit for the world outside an asylum’s walls?”

At that, Herbert turned his head slightly, so that his eyes were visible. His eyes were really a brilliant shade of blue, often so bright as to be difficult to look at, even if the color was slightly fascinating. But they were just pale enough to change color depending on the lighting. The eyes that looked at Stephen, ringed with shadow, were as bright and as flat as shale. “Then the reagent would be refined.” He sounded too tired to effect certainty; the attempt met only failure. “And again, and again, as many times as need be. I won’t be deterred by any setback.”

“I……… know you won’t.”

“Stephen.” He sounded sharper now, clearer, but there was carried with it something that pushed sleep even further from Stephen’s mind. “Promise me something.”

“I promi—“

“No, _listen_.” Herbert twisted around so that he was facing Stephen and leaning over him, ignoring the bed’s squeaks of protest. He clutched Stephen’s forearm in one clammy hand, staring down into his face so intently that it was all Stephen could do not to look away. “Stephen, if I die before you, and at a point before the reagent can restore the mind, or if I die in such a way as to make reanimation impossible, promise me you’ll carry on the work. Please.”

In the manner of one who’d not yet learned to be careful or even selective about who he swore faith to, “I promise.”

Herbert half-scowled down at him. “You’re just saying that to placate me,” he groused. “You didn’t even pause to think.”

An incredulous laugh escaped Stephen’s mouth. “I’m _not_. Herbert, why _wouldn’t_ I want to keep working at this?” He pushed that demonic scream from his mind. “It’ll change the world when it’s done.”

Herbert raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know that the work will ever be _done_ , per se…” But he was smiling, really smiling, and even if the pall cast by the previous night only left his face for a moment, the moment was still…

Stephen let the thought die.

When Herbert lied back down, he was facing Stephen, not quite as curled in on himself as he had been, but still noticeably tense. Stephen stared at him, mouth dry.

They’d fled the risen dead what couldn’t have been more than eight hours ago, passed the night so uncertain of safety as to keep the lamp on and the door barricaded all night long (The latter even now). This… This didn’t feel any safer.

For a moment, Stephen thought, torn between guilty relief and guiltier regret, that Herbert might feel the same way, for he sat up all of a sudden, looking around the room. But his hands went to work at his tie, clumsily undoing the knot before, to Stephen’s astonishment, balling it up and throwing it across the room. “I’ve come too far already to have to stop because I strangled on my own tie. I can just see my obituary now,” was the only explanation Herbert seemed interested in giving, for he lied back down immediately afterwards, still facing Stephen.

Stephen could still feel the bed shaking just a little, and the other occupant of the bed was shaking, too. They were alone. The door was shut, locked, and barred. Still, when Stephen reached out and pressed his hand to Herbert’s back, he did so at first only gingerly. There were two fears at war with each other in his mind, and he wasn’t certain which was worse.

Herbert stiffened, but only for a moment, before drawing closer to him, until his hair tickled Stephen’s chin. Stephen rubbed a slow, small circle on Herbert’s back, wincing where his hand met flesh that seemed to serve as little more than a sheath for bone. Gradually, his breathing evened out, and he was still, at last.

They lied like that for Stephen didn’t know how long, as the sounds of a waking house came and went, flowing around them like a river flowing around a rock. The coverlet was heaped at the foot of the bed. They might have been warmer if Stephen had reached down for it, but it felt to him as though it would have been a hindrance if they needed to escape. (He was still thinking about fleeing. He couldn’t help it.) And he didn’t dare move, though this time it was because he thought Herbert might actually be asleep. His face had slackened considerably, his mouth slightly open.

Herbert’s eyes flew open. Not asleep, then. But then they shot up to Stephen’s face, almost blank with terror. “Stephen? Stephen!” His hand clamped down on Stephen’s shoulder, painfully tight. “Stephen, is there someone at the window?” he asked in a choked voice.

Stephen looked back at him, baffled. “Herbert, your room is on the second floor.”

“Oh.” Slowly, entirely too slowly, Herbert took his hand from Stephen’s shoulder. Staring at nothing, stiff as a corpse, he murmured, “I suppose that would be impossible.”


End file.
